August 09, 2014

A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.

Owy. It was bowled by Varun Aaron, not one of the usual Indian spin bowlers. His bowls have been clocked in at the mid-90s miles per hour.

What happened to India during this test series? They looked pretty good in the first two tests and then completely disappeared for the last two tests. There's one more test match to go and maybe Ishant Sharma will be back for that one.

The IPL happened to India. So much of their every day game is based around attacking bowlers and smashing as many runs as possible. When the game position means they have to stick in and bat as long as possible, even if they're not scoring runs, they seem lost. The field at Lords didn't punish this because it was flat and consistent as a pool table.

But since the travesty of a track at Lords the last two tests have been on classic English pitches, designed for English bowlers swinging the ball around under cloudy skies, and this has coincided with the return to form of a couple English players and an apparent working out of some of the Indian batsmen.

Anderson looks like he owns Kohli now and away-away-in swing to Jadeja looks like it's a free wicket.

It also doesn't hurt that Ali is apparently turning into a "golden arm" - a bowler who's not great, but gets people out for no reason anyone can determine.